Paul Shaffer and David Letterman appear on stage together during the Netflix Is A Joke Festival presentation of 'This Better Be Funny With David Letterman and John Mulaney' at Hollywood's Montablan Theatre on May 5, 2026.

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It was like the good old Late Show days for a little while Tuesday night at L.A.’s Montalban Theatre.

David Letterman took over the venue to host Netflix Is A Joke Presents: This Better Be Funny with David Letterman with special guest John Mulaney. But before welcoming Mulaney into the lights, the veteran host had another trick up his sleeve bringing out beloved Late Show band leader and good pal Paul Shaffer. The capacity crowd greeted Shaffer with a standing ovation when he turned up at the top of the event.

Letterman, who recently signed on to executive produce Say Hello to Our Good Friend Paul Shaffer, an upcoming feature documentary about his longtime sidekick, traded quips with Shaffer like they did for years on late night television. “I got to go up to Moonshadows and meet Mel Gibson,” Shaffer joked as he made an exit that turned out to be relatively brief. Shaffer came back to close the show nearly 90 minutes later by taking a seat at the piano and performing a Frank Sinatra classic, “That’s Life.”

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Shaffer performs during the This Better Be Funny With David Letterman and John Mulaney.

Shaffer and Letterman

Letterman kicked off the show with a brief opening set that played a little like “this is your life” as the veteran host looked back on the early days, like all the way back to childhood. Photos flashed on the big screen behind him showing a young Letterman in his yearbook photo and on the basketball and track teams at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. He also recapped highlights of his career, like early radio and TV gigs, the time he served as the weekend weatherman or when he reported live for KTLA at the 1979 Rose Parade.

Letterman played well-received clips of his early television appearances on Mork & Mindy and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour. He also relayed praise he received early in his time in L.A. after an appearance at The Comedy Store. “I told a joke and nobody laughed,” Letterman recalled. “But I was not discouraged because I was petrified. You can’t be discouraged and petrified simultaneously. But when I got offstage, there was a man there in the shadows, a man I recognized by the name of Richard Pryor. … He said to me, ‘I really like that joke.’ And I thought, “Oh my God, I can go ahead and pay the rent.’ It was a huge moment for me.”

The other big moments of the night belonged to Letterman and Mulaney as they sat at center stage and traded lively and amusing stories about life, celebrities, their careers and families. Mulaney’s wife, Olivia Munn, was in the audience and he spent a chunk of time talking about their two children, a son named Malcolm and daughter Mei, and her Chinese-Vietnamese relatives.

About those relatives, Mulaney got lots of laughs for detailing his unique relationship with them. “For the first 39 years of my life, I financially supported zero Vietnamese people. Now, sitting here with you tonight, I have about 10 on the books and two take Cash App. It’s weird [when people ask], ‘Oh, what’s your life like when you’re [doing all these projects],’ but most of my day is texting with elderly Vietnamese people about if they got the money or if they need more. If I bought an appliance and it breaks, I don’t know if you know this, that’s on me.”

That said, Mulaney called it “one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me” to have his life expand in that way. “My white family is very … there’s just no comparison to being Vietnamese. Becoming Chinese-Vietnamese is the smartest thing I ever did. It’s remarkable. It’s remarkable.”

Mulaney and Letterman

Letterman quizzed Mulaney on a bunch of other remarkable events in his life, like soon becoming the first comedian to play Wrigley Field in his hometown of Chicago, accepting an honorary patronage from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, taking his son to Graceland, where he also performed, and becoming part owner of Years, a Midwestern non-alcoholic beer brand.

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Paul Shaffer, David Letterman Reunite at Netflix Event With John Mulaney